TOP STORY: Work will begin soon on repairing Ridge Road to prepare for next year's Locust Road construction

When work begins next year on the reconstruction of Locust Road, traffic will be detoured onto Ridge Road.  But earlier this year, city officials realized that Ridge Road has issues of its own in some locations.

Now the city has opened bids on the repair of one block of Ridge Road from College Drive to Meadow Court.  The low bidder on the project was Skyline Construction, with a bid of $157,964.69.

City Engineer Jeremy Bril says this fall's project is just phase one of a two-phase project.  Bids will be opened some time this winter on a project to repair Ridge Road from the top to the bottom of the hill it climbs, from roughly Meadow Court to 720 Ridge Road.  Bril says details of the second project are still being finalized, including whether the street will be shut down or have one lane at a time reconstructed.

The second phase of Ridge Road repairs will be timed so that it is done in time to allow work to begin on Locust Road, which probably will be a month or so after Locust Road bids are opened in late March.  City officials are still hoping to get all the road done on Locust Road in 2020, but that depends on weather conditions, the scope of the Locust Road project (an alternate bid would extend the project to Highland Drive) and what contractors find when they begin ripping up the existing Locust Road roadbed.